Arizona weekly citizen., 1887-11-12
GOING DOWN TO JERICHO.
The Rocky Road from Jerusaism-Pictur-
 esaue Iedoufn Guidss--Grand View.


 esque Dedouin Guidss-Grsnd View.
 The thieves hereabOuts, namely the Bed ouins, are not all done away with yet. At all events, people going from Jerusalem Dead Stewards must be provided with guards, who, on the principle that 1t takes a thief to catch a thief, are also BedOuinA Picturesque looking fellows, too, they are, fin their long, two foot wide, striped in black and white ulster cloaks, and their silken, tasseled head gear, wilh a long, brass bound gun slung across the back, big revolver in the belt, and a curved Damascus sword swinging jauntily from one side. Picturesque indeed your BedOuin Is, a. ke moves along in never SO stately fashion on bis Arabian horse, vOuchsafng once fin a while to turn his brOnzed, black whiskered face around to see how you are getting on. But of thieves We saw none, though the shepherds along the road glared meaningly once in a while. In- deed, news has just come of an intrepid Amer ican proceeding alone to the Jordan having an ugly encounter.
 We read the expression down to Jericho" down indeed. from an altitude of 2,5O0 feet above to depth of 1000 feet below. You pass around Olivet by the supposed triumphal path of our Lord, and then in half an hours
  6nd yourself at Bethany, where of course they are ready to show you hut called "ths house of Martha and Mary" while the tomb of Lazarus is as aSsuredly not lacking-in a country where the slightest shre,ls of not only Scripture but tradition are made of accouAt n the manufacture of holy O places. Then follows siege of saddle work, one could hardly call it riding, of going down into the valleys by the stoniest of roads, and of ascending of hills by the same sort. It is little consolation to bruised bones that it is the brook Cherith at the valley of Achor that you see. This up and down process, if well kept up for six hours. brings one tO a grand view, namely that of this wide plain through which flows the Jordan to the Dead Sea lying large and blue seemingly at our feet, and bordered on the opposite shore by the steep NebO mountains, indistinct toward the south from the mist which the remarkable evapora- ton of water causes to form over tho surface of the lake. Over there, among those high. lands, is Moab, not village, or even a dwell ing, in sight to break its vast mOnotony. Behind that desolate shore and land of Moab is Arabia, and when one thinks of the i'm nense stretch of desert to where water in the shape of the Persian gulf can break upon the sight, this lack of life seems not an unfitting introduction.
 Slowly the caravan descendS into the plain "Where is JerichOfr says some one, hardly thinking that the handful of huts just beyond the orange trees can be the modern represent ative of the proud old city whose walls bo- haved in such an unnatural way when the intrepid Joshua marched his forces against them, and the priests blew their trumpets. Still, man whom God delegated to control the sun and moon might well be left to take care of city. Two hours away lies the Dead Sca-the city of Ehjah's later life, the city where Saul came to be made king, where Da- vid returned from exile, the then ~city of palms, now not a single one left-approach- ing the water as near as possible, but no palm city could be built on shores which were bliShted with salt-E J. Baldwins Letter in Cleveland Leader.